Keep Your Head
by jetplanejane
Summary: Loki discovers Jane and Darcy having a bit of fun at his expense. Jane/Loki, Darcy/Loki, Jane/Darcy/Loki (if you want it to be).


"_Darcy_. Put That down."

"What?" She countered, innocently, lifting the horned helmet from its plinth. "I'm just having a look."

Darcy had been in Asgard not three days "just having a look" at everything she could get her hands on. Her friend, Jane thought, was more of a student of hard science than even she realized.

The guards standing sentry beyond the överhogdalesque tapestries of the throne room's antechamber made no move to investigate. Either they thought the pair of mortals quite harmless or they were under orders to leave them be.

"That's Loki's."

"I know, right?" Tempting fate and the wrath of Asgard's most mercurial son, Darcy fitted the cow-thing on her head. "How do I look?"

"Like you should take it off."

"Try Thor's." Then, with a suggestive smirk, she added, "Unless you have already."

"What? _No."_

"He's your boyfriend, it's not like he's gonna mind."

"He's not my boyfriend." Or, at least, 'boyfriend' was _not_ the word you used to describe your post-mortal love interest from half-way across the universe. "He's just..."

"Your boyfriend," Darcy repeated, fussing with Loki's helmet. Once she was comfortable, she ordered, "Kneel, bitch!"

In spite of her reservations – amused, now, by her dorky friend's exaggerated and proud cosplay pose – Jane got in on the game. "Make me, Gaga," she said, after she had Thor's winged helmet on her head.

When Darcy insisted they swop headgear, Jane reluctantly tried Loki's on for size. It was deceptively light – fashioned from some kind of alloy alien to Earth – but the exaggerated scythe-like curve of the horns, added to the fact that it had been designed for someone a whole head taller, still made it feel a bit like trying to balance a teapot on her head. The burnished helmet rode low on her forehead and she had to keep pushing it from her eyes.

"Help you with that?"

Loki's quicksilver smooth voice surprised them both. He kept a low profile (and almost entirely to himself these days), but that only made his sudden appearances all the more unsettling. Jane didn't know how long he'd been standing there, observing their antics, but it might as well have been half a thousand years.

"I…I…," she stuttered. _Words. I know words_. But all that came to mind was _shit_.

"I know: just a bit of fun?" A magnanimous smile framed the question and Jane saw teeth. It reminded her of the time she'd slapped him. Loki had enjoyed that more than he should have.

"I'm sorry, we were just..." Wait. Why the hell was she apologizing – to Loki of _all_ people…a self-absorbed megalomaniac who'd tried to subjugate humanity? Jane started to remove the helmet, but he'd already crossed the distance between them. She heard the creak of fine leather…felt fingers – cool, careful, impersonal, like those of a surgeon (or an expert torturer) – ghost over hers as he helped it off her head. When she lifted her eyes to his, he was looking at her with the intimacy of someone intent on crushing an gnat, or someone who thought the helmet wasn't the only piece of clothing he wished to remove. The appropriate response would have been disgust, but instead Jane felt a kind of perverse thrill; she felt simultaneously powerful and vulnerable.

_"I should like to wear it for you sometime, Jane Foster...Have you kneel before me."_

"Excuse me?"

Loki arched his brows, expectant and slightly perplexed. "Excuse you what?" Like he had no idea what she was talking about.

"You said...I thought you…" Words and coherent sentences were a problem again, and she suddenly doubted her own ears. _I could have sworn..._Never mind, she'd ask Darcy about it later. But later, her friend would deny hearing anything.

"And you. Darcy, is it?" Loki's absinthe green eyes swept to the other woman. She removed Thor's signature helmet and held it out at arm's length like the more distance between them the better. "That was a rather unconvincing performance." She remembered to breathe as Loki took possession of the headgear. From the space between spaces, he conjured her tartan plaid hat – the one she thought she'd lost exploring Asgard's high, wind-swept towers the day before – and tugged it down on her head. "I'm flattered, though."

Later, Darcy would try to convince Jane that he'd winked at her. Like, seriously, winked at her.

Returning the pair of helmets to their more dignified states atop the plinths, Loki cautioned, "I wouldn't be tempted to try on the All-Father's." In case it had crossed their minds. Only Darcy looked guilty, though. "I'll be keeping my eye on you. Both of you."

After he was out of eyeshot, Darcy pushed her hat up. "Don't get me wrong. I know he's supposed to be this douchebag god who sent that Destroyer thing to kill us, and he _totally_ fucked up half of Manhattan, but he's also actually kind of nicer in person. And taller."

"You're not serious."

Nodding toward Loki's helmet, Darcy asked, "Think he'll let me borrow it for Halloween?"

She had to sidestep Jane's scolding arm-slap.


End file.
